Alfred Nobel Biography

The Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and other explosives,
but he is best remembered for using the bulk of his personal fortune to
create the Nobel Foundation, which awards Nobel Prizes every year to those
who benefit mankind.

Early life

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born October 21, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden,
the son of Immanuel and Andrietta Ahlsell Nobel. He was often sick as a
child and had to be attended to almost constantly by his mother. He
attended St. Jakob's School in Stockholm in 1841 and 1842, but
then the family moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, where Nobel's
father, a chemist and inventor, had established an engineering and
weapons company. Nobel and his brothers received private tutoring from
1843 to 1850. In 1850 Nobel set out on a two-year tour of western Europe
and the United States, learning different languages and seeking ideas
and contacts in engineering. Russia's involvement in the Crimean
War (1853–56) led to great profits for Nobel's
father's company, but after the war ended, weapons contracts were
cancelled, and Nobel's father soon lost all of his money.

Explosive discoveries

Alfred Nobel remained in Russia when his father returned to Stockholm in
1858. Both were doing studies of nitroglycerin, a violent explosive
liquid. In 1863 Alfred rejoined his father, and in that year he
succeeded in exploding nitroglycerin at will by using gunpowder to set
it off. In 1865 he introduced the use of exploding mercury to provide
the charge for the blast, and this turned out to be the key to all the
later high explosives. Nobel patented his invention and traveled around
trying to cash in on it. Factories built to manufacture nitroglycerin
were established near Stockholm and Hamburg, Germany, and the explosive
oil was shipped around the world. In 1866 Nobel visited the United
States and built factories in New York and San Francisco, California.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the Nobel companies faced growing criticism,
arising from the many accidental explosions that happened when
nitroglycerin was being moved or stored. Nobel had expected these
problems. As early as 1864 he had tried using different solids to absorb
the dangerous liquid, including kieselguhr (a light material made from
the remains of certain kinds of algae, a type of plant that grows in
water). This material reduced the blasting power slightly, and the
resulting product was solid, plastic, and better able to withstand
physical or temperature shock. This was dynamite, patented in 1867. The
new invention was heavily promoted, and a worldwide industry was
established.

After moving the company headquarters and laboratory to Paris, France,
in 1870, Nobel continued to work toward developing other explosives.
These included ballistite, which was created in 1887 in response to the
military

Alfred Nobel.
Courtesy of the

Library of Congress

.

demand for a smokeless, slow-burning blasting powder. This was
Nobel's last major invention, but throughout his life he improved
on all of his creations in detail, patented them, and then left them to
his companies, with which he had as little formal contact as possible.

Used fortune to benefit humanity

From 1865 to 1873 Nobel lived in Hamburg and then in Paris until 1891,
when the use of ballistite by the Italian military made him unpopular
there. He moved to San Remo, Italy, where he died on December 10, 1896.
He was a truly international figure, traveling constantly. For all of
his achievements, he was a reserved and shy man who hated publicity. He
had taken care of his mother his whole life and never married.

Nobel's will directed that the bulk of his huge estate should
fund annual prizes for those who, in the previous year, had most
benefited mankind in five specified subjects: physics (the study of the
relationship between matter and energy), chemistry, medicine,
literature, and peace. His will was settled within four years, and the
Nobel Foundation was created. A Nobel Prize is one of the highest honors
that an individual can receive. Each winner receives a gold medal, a
scroll, and a cash award based on the earnings of the
foundation's investments during that year. Recent prizes have
been around one million dollars each.